


relaxation is overrated

by hailingstars



Series: someone gets hurt (febuwhump 2021) [16]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: FebuWhump2021, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Peter Parker Gets Shot, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Peter isn't helping, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony is a stressed dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29523555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailingstars/pseuds/hailingstars
Summary: “What’s wrong, Parker?”“So I have news,” he tells him.Tony immediately closes his eyes and braces himself. It’s never a good sign when the boy starts stalling. “Spit it out.”“I have a bullet in my leg.”“What?”“Just a small one!”“All bullets are small.”“That’s true, Mr. Stark, but I don’t know, compared to the others, this one sort of feels like small fries, you know?”ORPeter takes a bullet to the leg, and Tony is a Stressed Dad.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: someone gets hurt (febuwhump 2021) [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138436
Comments: 36
Kudos: 383
Collections: Really good Irondad and Spiderson fanfics, febuwhump 2021





	relaxation is overrated

“Hey, Mr. Stark, how are you?” 

Peter’s voice on the other end of the phone is muffled, broken, and it brings a spike in Tony’s always present anxiety. He holds his cellphone in one hand, while he continues to pour himself a scotch with the other. 

It’s eleven in the fucking evening, so he isn’t ready to give up on his plans to relax just yet, despite all the obvious signs screaming that his doom is unavoidable. Now that Peter’s on the line, he doubts any real relaxing will take place. 

“What’s wrong, Parker?” 

“So I have news,” he tells him. 

Tony immediately closes his eyes and braces himself. It’s never a good sign when the boy starts stalling. “Spit it out.” 

“I have a bullet in my leg.” 

“ _What?”_

“Just a small one!”

“All bullets are small.” 

“That’s true, Mr. Stark, but I don’t know, compared to the others, this one sort of feels like small fries, you know?” 

“The others?” questions Tony. 

“When you’re Spider-Man you make a lot of enemies. People like shooting at you and all that. It’s just I’ve never been very good at dodgeball.” 

Tony inhales, holds, then releases, in some futile attempt to calm his pulse. It doesn’t work. 

His heart continues to rampage around in his chest without any sign of ceasing. He can’t work out which is worse, the imagine of Peter lying in an alley with a bullet in his leg, or that he’d just referred to being shot at as playing a gym class sport. 

“Can you come, ummm, help me out?” 

As if Peter even needs to ask.

Tony’s already pouring his glass of scotch down the kitchen sink, and ordering FRIDAY to send him Peter’s location. 

“I’ll be there in a jiffy,” says Tony. 

He hangs up, pockets his phone, and steps out onto his balcony. Armor flies towards him. Cloaks him with power. And he’s blasting off into night, ready to go out and rescue his dumbass child.

*

Tony finds Peter in a dark alley. His back is up against a building, and he’s playing some game on his phone, as if he’s a bored child waiting at the doctor’s office instead of Spider-Man with a gunshot wound. Peter, at least, puts the phone away into his spidey suit when Tony lands.

“Kid,” says Tony. His face mask disappears and he eyes the blood pouring out his leg. “That’s a lot of blood.”

Peter shrugs. “Oh, I’ve had worse.” 

“Please do not say that,” says Tony. “If you want me and your aunt to continue letting you play cops and robbers with street riff-raff, please do not tell me anything more than I need to know.” 

“Fine, _fine_ ,” says Peter. “Just get this bullet out of me so I can continue my patrol.”

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” 

“That’s why you showed up?” asks Peter. Painfully serious. “Remove the bullet and I’ll be on my way.” 

“Oh yeah,” says Tony. “Let me just grab my medic bag and my bullet removers.” 

Peter looks up at him. The black eyes stitched into the spidey mask are comically wide, and if it was any other situation, Tony might’ve laughed. Or at least privately thought of it as cute. 

“What about me made you think I would be willing to dig around in your leg with tweezers searching for a _very small_ bullet?” 

“Dunno,” says Peter. “Field surgery doesn’t seem that difficult, you know, for a genius? And I don’t really want to go to Medbay.” 

Tony doesn’t believe what he’s hearing, but it gets worse as Peter continues to ramble with no sign of slowing down any time soon. 

“There’s a drug store down the road, you could just go there and buy some rubbing alcohol and some -”

“-kid-”

“-what’s the big deal? I do it all -”

“-Do _not_ keep talking, hear me? Stop talking right now!” says Tony, beyond stressed. 

He starts his breathing exercises. He closes his eyes.

“Mr. Stark, are you okay?” asks Peter. “What are you doing?” 

“I’m trying to block this conversation from my memory,” he tells him. “It’s the only way I’ll ever get any rest.” 

It’s a miracle, but the boy stops talking long enough for Tony to calm himself down. 

“Okay,” says Tony. “Let’s go.”

Peter lets out a pitiful groan. 

“Hey, it’s either a piggy back ride to the Tower’s med center, or bleeding out in a dark alley, your choice.” 

“Fine,” says Peter, allowing Tony to help him up, then clinging to his back. “But we’re never speaking about this again.” 

“Oh,” says Tony. “We’re in total agreement there.” 

*

They retrieve the bullet from Peter’s leg, and they bandage it up real good. Peter’s got it propped up in a sling when Tony returns to his medbay room. He stops. Stares at it, and hits Peter with a look. 

“And you wanted me to do it.” 

Peter grins ruefully. “Just didn’t want to spend the night in the hospital. All high on pain meds.” 

“Didn’t see you refusing them,” says Tony, plopping down in the bedside armchair. 

“Yeah, well,” says Peter. “Suppose it _is_ better than being all dead zombielike in some alley.”

Tony has the perfect opportunity to gloat right there, in that moment, and yet he lets it sail by. I-told-you-so’s are for weaker men. Or maybe it’s the opposite. Tony doesn’t exactly have it figured out.

Just knows now that Peter’s got his mask off, and his tragically young eyes peer back at him, Tony isn’t capable of being anything less than kind and compassionate. There’s not even room for sarcastic banter when Peter’s looking so young, and vulnerable, and a little bit high on those pain meds he hadn’t really wanted at first. 

“Thanks for coming to get me, Mr. Stark,” says Peter. “And, umm, sorry for almost giving you heart palpitations and all. I know I’m kind of annoying sometimes.” 

“Don’t worry about it, Pete,” says Tony. “The palpitations are worth it.” 

Peter laughs, suddenly and loud. “Palpitations is a fun word. Like Emperor Palpitations… no wait.” He shakes his head. “That’s not his name… what’s his name? On Star Wars… whatever. Should’ve named him palpitations.” 

“They must really have you on the strong stuff,” says Tony, with a chuckle, “if you’re forgetting your Star Wars facts.” 

“Does that make me a fake fan?” His voice is so serious and scared, as if he really believes somehow he’s about to be banned from the Star Wars fandom forever. 

“No,” says Tony. “Nobody who spends three hours putting together a Lego Death Star is a fake fan.” 

“Oh,” says Peter. Relief washes across his face. “Good.” 

Tony chuckles. “I think maybe you should sleep it off, kid.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s good, sleep is really good,” says Peter. He pulls the blanket up to his chin, and looks at Tony, glossy eyed, that is, until both his eyes drift shut. “You’ll stay with me?” 

“Yeah, kid, of course.” 

Peter doesn’t say anything else and Tony can tell it’s because he’s already nodded off into dream town. With a sigh, Tony props his feet up on Peter’s bed. He guesses relaxation is overrated, anyway. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> comments and kudos let me know what you think!!


End file.
